1. Field
The present invention relates to aircraft components. More particularly, the present invention relates to testing various individual aircraft components having an open architecture Ethernet backplane (central communication system) with computing systems prior to joining the aircraft components together.
2. Related Art
During the manufacture of aircrafts, various aircraft components may be manufactured and tested at separate geographic locations prior to being integrated together to form the complete aircraft. For example, one part may be manufactured in New York, while another part is manufactured in Florida, and the parts may be assembled in Washington. To insure that the electrical and communications systems of the aircraft components will properly communicate with each other once they are joined together, a variety of on-site testing equipment is traditionally utilized at each production site. Sometimes multiple types of testing equipment are needed at each production site, and some of the testing equipment can be expensive and/or space-consuming.
If any of the testing equipment at one of the production sites is not calibrated properly or otherwise provides inaccurate readings, the aircraft components may be improperly tested and therefore may not actually communicate properly once they are joined together. The result of such errors may be costly and time-consuming, particularly if components must be shipped back to the original production sites to fix the error.
Therefore an improved system and method for testing aircraft components located in geographically distant locations for communicable compatibility prior to integrating the components together is desired.